Natasha Yar
Lieutenant Natasha Yar, better known as Tasha, was a Human Starfleet officer born on Turkana IV, and former security chief on the . Unfortunately, Tasha was killed not even a year into the Enterprise's mission. She was fondly remembered by the Enterprise crew, and an alternate timeline version of Tasha indirectly played a very important role in Romulan politics. Early life and career Tasha was born in 2337 on the failed colony world of Turkana IV. Her sister, Ishara, was born five years later. Both of their parents were killed shortly following Ishara's birth, leaving Tasha to care for them both. ( ) Tasha had to avoid rape gangs and terrible violence just to scavenge for the bare necessities of life, such as food. One of the only bright spots in her life was finding a cat, which she attempted to protect while being chased by a rape gang. ( ) Drug use was also commonplace. Tasha apparently resorted to drugs as an escape at some point, but later remembered that they were of more harm to her than good. ( ) Although Ishara decided to remain on the planet and eventually joined the Coalition, Tasha managed to find a way off Turkana IV in 2352 by the age of fifteen. Ishara and Tasha never saw one another again. Tasha began to attend Starfleet Academy soon after her escape. ( ) Tasha credited Starfleet for saving her from her previous life. ( ) She joined security because of the lawless environment in which she grew up. ( ) In 2363, while conducting a rescue mission, Yar rescued a colonist after traversing a Carnelian minefield. Captain Jean-Luc Picard's ship at the time was also present. Picard was so impressed with her bravery that he recruited Yar for duty on the Enterprise at that time, as Yar's current commanding officer owed him a favor. ( ) :Although implies that Picard was in command of the ''Enterprise at the time of this incident, shows Yar was a part of the ship's crew at the time of its launch and that Farpoint Station was the ship's first mission. This probably means Picard was commanding another unknown vessel at the time, while awaiting transfer to take up his new command.'' The Enterprise-D Yar piloted Picard to the Enterprise-D in the shuttlecraft Galileo before his first visit to the ship. She set out to Farpoint Station from Earth Station McKinley with most of the crew. ( ) En route, the Enterprise was intercepted and detained by the Q entity. Tasha wanted to fight him, but Picard refused her suggestion, because of the tremendous power of the Q. While the senior staff was taken to the 21st century courtroom and put on trial by Q, Yar could no longer resist the urge to tell Q he was wrong for accusing Humanity of "savage, childlike behavior." She was placed into some sort of deep freeze by Q as punishment, but was later revived. Later, Yar took part in several away teams which investigated Farpoint Station and the living station's mate, which returned to seek vengeance against the Bandi for imprisoning the other creature. ( ) While the Enterprise was negotiating at the world of Ligon II for vaccine needed on Styris IV, the Ligonian leader Lutan became impressed with Tasha's martial arts skills and her physical beauty. As a show of defiance and boldness in line with the Ligon Code of Honor, he kidnapped her and brought her to his planet. Picard needed to negotiate both for her safe return and for the vaccine. However, Lutan was determined to have Yar as his First One, the ceremonial title of his wife. The current First One, Yareena, challenged Lutan's decision, requiring Yar to participate in a fight to the death with Yareena. In order to satisfy the needs of the culture and return to the Enterprise, Tasha fought and killed Yareena. Fortunately, samples of the poison used on Yar's weapon was returned to the Enterprise by Data, allowing Doctor Beverly Crusher to develop an antidote and revive Yareena once they were brought to the Enterprise. Yareena stripped Lutan of his title and offered him to Tasha, but she refused, stating that there would be "complications". ( ) When the Enterprise was transported to the M-33 Galaxy by the Traveler, Yar hallucinated that she had returned to Turkana IV and was being chased by the rape gangs. ( ) Because of the matriarchal nature of the society on Angel I, Yar took informal command of the away team while Commander William T. Riker negotiated for the release of survivors from the freighter Odin. ( ) Tasha was killed in late 2364 on the planet Vagra II. She was part of an away team sent to rescue Deanna Troi and Ben Prieto, who had crashed there aboard a shuttle. Their rescue was impeded by a lifeform known as Armus. When Yar tried to walk around Armus to get to the shuttle crew, Armus attacked and killed her without warning, simply as a display of his power. Dr. Crusher tried to revive her but she was too badly injured, as the life had been "drained" from her. The officially recorded cause of death was heavy synaptic damage. A service was held for Tasha in the holodeck following the rescue of the crew from the surface, where a holographic message from Tasha was played. Tasha always believed her death would happen quickly and while on duty, and that was the way she wanted it. ( ) Personal interests Yar was an expert in aikido, a form of martial arts, and regularly used several holodeck training programs. ( ) She was also a parrises squares player. ( ) Three days before her death, Yar was scheduled to participate in a martial arts competition with science officer Swenson and Lieutenant Minnerly. She was favored in the ship's pool. ( ) Personal relationships Family Tasha rarely spoke of her family because of the chaotic nature of her childhood, though both her sister Ishara and her half-Romulan daughter Sela visited the Enterprise. Friendships Yar saw Captain Picard as an informal father figure. She found support in Picard when she was confined to a "penalty box" as part of a deadly game run by Q during the Enterprise's second encounter. She had been placed there as punishment for challenging Q, and would have been consigned to oblivion if another officer was sent to the penalty box. Tasha was frustrated and upset by the situation and began to cry. Picard said she was permitted the feelings and that they were in no way a show of weakness. ( ) Tasha was often uncomfortable in expressing her femininity, and for that reason sometimes sought the help of Deanna Troi. While under the influence of a polywater intoxication in 2364, Yar entered Troi's quarters and tried on several pieces of her clothing. ( ) Yar was also very good friends with Worf, who, as a Klingon warrior, greatly admired her physical combat skills. Together, they took part in a parrises squares tournament against the Starbase 74 maintenance crew in 2364. ( ) Worf also placed a wager on Yar's victory in the martial arts competition which she was to have participated before her death. Yar was touched by this gesture. In the holographic message she prepared in the event of her death, Yar spent a brief moment addressing each of her friends. She called Will Riker "the best," and was grateful for his trust, encouragement, and humor. She said Deanna proved to her that she could be feminine without losing anything. Yar saw a kindred spirit in Worf, as they were both warriors and orphans who found a place in this family. Tasha admired Beverly Crusher's fierce and unstoppable devotion, and from her learned to strive for excellence no matter what the personal cost. She regretted that she would be unable to see Wesley Crusher grow to become an exceptional young man. Yar was thankful for Geordi La Forge's friendship and support in times of despair. She assured Data that his way of viewing the universe from the perspective of a child made him the most Human of the entire group. Tasha said she considered Picard to be like a father, but she was unable to tell for sure because she had never had a father. However, she felt he had the "heart of an explorer and the soul of a poet" and that if she could pick one person to be like, it would be him. She concluded by saying that death was not a goodbye since she would always live on in their memories. After the service, Data was confused, thinking he had missed the point of her funeral because his thoughts were not for Yar, but for himself and how her presence would be missed. However, Picard assured him that he understood perfectly. ( ) The pain of Tasha's death would be recalled several times by the Enterprise crew, such as when Marla Aster died ( ) and when Data was believed killed in a shuttle accident in late 2366. ( ) Riker used Tasha's death as an example of how he felt the ritual Klingon suicide was a cowardly escape when Worf considered it following a paralysis in 2368. ( ) When the Enterprise went to Turkana IV in 2367 to rescue the crew of the Arcos, Ishara helped the crew rescue the survivors from the Turkana IV Alliance forces. She expressed a desire to leave and join Starfleet like her sister, which charmed the crew into trusting her and perhaps see more of Tasha in Ishara. Her interest in leaving Turkana was later determined to be mostly a deception in order to use the rescue mission as a way to cripple the Alliance. ( ) Romance Yar was at least slightly attracted to Data and had sex with him while under the influence of polywater intoxication. She later told him that the incident "never happened". ( ) Data still felt a special connection to Tasha and often mentions that he and Tasha were intimate. He kept a holographic image of Tasha to remember her. When Data's rights as a sentient being were called into question, his romantic encounter with Tasha was a strong influence for Judge Phillipa Louvois to rule that Data was in fact a sentient lifeform. ( ) La Forge and Wesley Crusher found the holoimage when they visited Data's quarters after his apparent death in 2366. ( ) Yar also had random romantic encounters with several Enterprise crewmembers while affected by the polywater intoxication. Geordi La Forge originally passed on the intoxication to Tasha, and he expressed lustful feelings towards her. ( ) La Forge also told Yar that she was more beautiful than he imagined once he was briefly granted normal sight by Commander Riker, bestowed with the powers of the Q Continuum. ( ) Alternate realities and timelines In an alternate timeline, Lieutenant Natasha Yar was security chief on the battleship [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)#Encounter with Enterprise-C|USS Enterprise-D]] during the Second Federation-Klingon War. In this timeline, Yar joined the crew of the Enterprise straight from Starfleet Academy, considering herself lucky to have been given an assignment aboard the vessel. In 2366, the Enterprise-D encountered a temporal rift, from which emerged the [[USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-C)|USS Enterprise-C]]. During the course of repairs to the displaced vessel, Yar worked closely with the Enterprise-C officer Richard Castillo and developed romantic feelings for him. She also became aware that Guinan was slightly uncomfortable around her, and forced Guinan to reveal that she had died a senseless death in the true timeline. After the captain of the Enterprise-C, Rachel Garrett, was killed in a Klingon attack, Yar requested transfer to the Enterprise-C. She realized it was a virtual suicide mission, but she was very concerned about Castillo and also wanted to somehow change her meaningless death into one which counted for a cause. After gaining Captain Picard's grudging approval, Yar assumed the tactical position on the Enterprise-C and successfully returned to Narendra III with the ship. Her actions allowed the vessel the minutes it needed to restore history to its correct course - preventing the war from ever taking place. ( ) While the Enterprise-C was destroyed, some of the crewmembers were captured, including Yar. The Romulan general who oversaw their capture became enamoured of her, and spared the lives of the remaining crew in exchange for Yar becoming his consort. One year later, she gave birth to a daughter, named Sela. Yar was still not completely satisfied with remaining with the Romulans and when an escape opportunity presented itself, she took it. She took her daughter, then four years old, but Sela cried out for fear of being separated from her father and her life. Yar was caught and executed, and Sela claimed that the Human part of her died that day as well. The events surrounding the Enterprise-C remained unknown to the Federation until 2368, when Captain Picard and the Enterprise-D encountered Sela along the Romulan Neutral Zone. Her story was corroborated by Guinan. ( ) Another alternate version of Yar was seen by Captain Picard in the anti-time past. This timeline diverged during the shuttle trip to the Enterprise back in 2364. Picard was somewhat disoriented during his initial shifts from the other two time periods, and was distracted seeing Yar again. He also mistakenly gave orders about ship security to Worf. Yar went along with Picard's unusual orders to proceed to Farpoint Station in lieu of investigating a temporal anomaly in the Romulan Neutral Zone, and again when Picard decided to go to the anomaly after all. When Picard made the decision to enter the anomaly and create a static warp shell, Yar, along with the rest of the bridge crew, momentarily hesitated. However, Picard was able to convince the crew of the importance of the task and Tasha struggled to keep the antimatter containment field maintained until the past Enterprise was destroyed. ( ) Background Tasha Yar was played by Denise Crosby during the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Crosby was a part of the Next Generation regular cast from to , although she was listed in the main credits for the remainder of the first season. Also, was filmed after , meaning that episode was technically Crosby's final as a regular castmember. In the final scene in "Symbiosis", Crosby can be seen waving at the camera, waving goodbye to all of her fans. The wave is only visible for half a second, but can easily be seen on DVD with frame-by-frame advancement. Yar was the first regular to depart a Star Trek series while in production and also the first whose character was killed off without being resurrected. Crosby returned for guest spots as Yar in and and was seen in holographic form in and . She was also seen in stock footage during Riker's treatment in and during Data's personality test in . Yar's character was indirectly inspired by Jenette Goldstein's space marine character Vasquez from the motion picture . The original casting call for Natasha Yar, from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, stated the following: :'' LT. Macha Hernandez - 26 year old woman of unspecified Latin descent who serves as the starship's security chief. She is described as having a new quality of conditioned-body-beauty, a fire in her eyes and muscularly well developed and very female body, but keeping in mind that much of her strength comes from attitude. Macha has an almost obsessive devotion to protecting the ship and its crew and treats Capt. Picard and Number One as if they were saints.'' Originally, Marina Sirtis auditioned for this role, while Crosby read for Deanna Troi. Gene Roddenberry decided that each would be better as the other's character, and Macha's description was altered to reflect Crosby's blonde looks. Yar is the only main character besides Troi to wear the "skant" version of the Starfleet uniform, in the very last scene of "Encounter at Farpoint." Yar is behind the tactical console, but the skant is visible if you look for it. A line in Max Grodénchik's "Rom's Song" suggests that Quark should be "killed...off like Tasha Yar", so that Rom could inherit his bar. External link * Yar, Natasha Yar, Natasha Yar, Natasha Yar, Natasha cs:Natasha Yarová de:Natasha Yar es:Tasha Yar fr:Natasha Yar nl:Natasha Yar pl:Natasha Yar